Influence of increasing elevation on growth characteristics at timberline

1986 ◽  
Vol 64 (11) ◽  
pp. 2517-2523 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katherine Hansen-Bristow

Significant differences in growing-season air and soil temperatures were found with increasing elevation in the upper montane and forest–alpine tundra ecotone. Temperature inversions in topographic depressions were frequent, especially during the growing season. Variability in bud flush timing with elevation was best accounted for by soil temperatures; however, air temperature recorded within a mat conifer also correlated well with bud flush timing. Significant differences in shoot elongation, needle length, and cuticular thickness were found with differences in climate and elevational changes.

2013 ◽  
Vol 10 (7) ◽  
pp. 4465-4479 ◽  
Author(s):  
K. L. Hanis ◽  
M. Tenuta ◽  
B. D. Amiro ◽  
T. N. Papakyriakou

Abstract. Ecosystem-scale methane (CH4) flux (FCH4) over a subarctic fen at Churchill, Manitoba, Canada was measured to understand the magnitude of emissions during spring and fall shoulder seasons, and the growing season in relation to physical and biological conditions. FCH4 was measured using eddy covariance with a closed-path analyser in four years (2008–2011). Cumulative measured annual FCH4 (shoulder plus growing seasons) ranged from 3.0 to 9.6 g CH4 m−2 yr−1 among the four study years, with a mean of 6.5 to 7.1 g CH4 m−2 yr−1 depending upon gap-filling method. Soil temperatures to depths of 50 cm and air temperature were highly correlated with FCH4, with near-surface soil temperature at 5 cm most correlated across spring, fall, and the shoulder and growing seasons. The response of FCH4 to soil temperature at the 5 cm depth and air temperature was more than double in spring to that of fall. Emission episodes were generally not observed during spring thaw. Growing season emissions also depended upon soil and air temperatures but the water table also exerted influence, with FCH4 highest when water was 2–13 cm below and lowest when it was at or above the mean peat surface.


Botany ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jack Tessier

Changes in climate are leading to modifications in the timing of seasonal events such as migrations and flowering. Erythronium americanum (trout lily) can break bud early in response to warming, but changes to its growing season may be limited by early shade from canopy trees and frost. I experimentally assessed the impact of shade and frost on senescence in E. americanum and descriptively monitored the response of E. americanum to vernal air and soil temperatures in a garden setting. Early shade did not affect the timing of senescence. Experimental exposure to frost resulted in increased leaf damage, earlier senescence, and greater corm death than in control plants. Despite ten days in which the air temperature dropped below freezing, there was no evidence of leaf damage in the field. These results suggest that early shade from canopy trees will not hasten the end of the future growing season for E. americanum, but that late frost could bring about early senescence if that frost is sufficiently hard.


2013 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 4539-4574
Author(s):  
K. L. Hanis ◽  
M. Tenuta ◽  
B. D. Amiro ◽  
T. N. Papakyriakou

Abstract. Ecosystem-scale methane (CH4) flux (FCH4) over a subarctic fen at Churchill, Manitoba, Canada was measured to understand the magnitude of emissions during spring and fall shoulder seasons, and the growing season in relation to physical and biological conditions. FCH4 was measured using eddy covariance with a closed-path analyzer in four years (2008–2011). Cumulative measured annual FCH4 (shoulder plus growing seasons) ranged from 3.0 to 9.6 g CH4 m−2 yr−1 among the four study years, with a mean of 6.5 to 7.1 g CH4 m−2 yr−1 depending upon gap-filling method. Soil temperatures to depths of 50 cm and air temperature were highly correlated with FCH4, with near surface soil temperature at 5 cm most correlated across spring, fall, and the whole season. The response of FCH4 to soil temperature at the 5 cm depth and air temperature was more than double in spring to that of fall. Emission episodes were generally not observed during spring thaw. Growing season emissions also depended upon soil and air temperatures but water table also exerted influence with FCH4 highest when water was 2–13 cm below and least when it was at or above the mean peat surface.


1981 ◽  
Vol 61 (3) ◽  
pp. 565-573 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. A. CAMPBELL ◽  
W. NICHOLAICHUK ◽  
V. O. BIEDERBECK ◽  
H. UKRAINETZ ◽  
J. BOLE

Agronomists often require quick, easy methods of estimating soil temperatures under cereal production, either to fill in missing experimental measurements or to help explain apparent discrepancies in results. Methods available in the literature allow such estimates to be made from meteorological measurements and soil physical characteristics, but these methods are often mathematically complex. In the present paper a simple empirical regression and correlation approach was used to relate soil temperatures under cereal and fallow cropping systems to air temperature, and also to soil temperature at corresponding depths under grass plots at Swift Current, Saskatchewan. Relationships for the top 22.5 cm of soil were developed for the growing season and also for the whole year. Relationships between soil and air temperature were good near the soil surface, but deteriorated with depth even though highly significant r2 values were obtained. The best relationships were obtained between soil temperatures under the cereal system and temperatures under grass (r2 > 0.8 for growing season and > 0.9 for whole year). The relationships between mean daily temperatures under cereals (y) and those under grass at corresponding depths (x) were generally represented by y = x. The best Swift Current relationships for the growing season were used successfully [Formula: see text] to predict data for different years at Swift Current and Scott, Saskatchewan and at Lethbridge, Alberta. The error in prediction at the 10-cm depth was, on the average, 1–3 °C and at the 20-cm depth, 0–4 °C. The relationship developed will be more accurate in drier regions such as the southern prairies.


1992 ◽  
Vol 22 (5) ◽  
pp. 690-698 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen W. Hallgren ◽  
John A. Helms

Morphogenesis of the terminal shoot was studied in 2-year-old seedlings of California red fir (Abiesmagnifica A. Murr.) and two elevational sources of white fir (Abiesconcolor (Gord. & Glend.) Lindl.). Seedlings were either watered or left unwatered during the growing season in order to produce different shoot morphologies and seedlings with and without a summer shoot. Under favorable soil moisture, the frequency of summer shoot production was 32, 53, and 82% for red fir and high- and low-elevation white fir, respectively. Drought from mid-May to mid-September reduced summer shoot production to less than 1% in both species. Spring shoot morphology was not an indicator of capacity to produce a summer shoot. Rate of primordium production was directly related to apical dome diameter. However, when the normal spring increase in apical dome diameter was arrested by summer shoot elongation, the rate of primordium production appeared to be unaffected. Although the apical and subapical meristems were active at the same time, they did not appear to be antagonistic. The major effects of producing a summer shoot were as follows: (i) elongation of 60–120% more intemodes in the current growing season, (ii) production of 15–40% more needle primordia in the overwintering bud, (iii) production of 30–60% more primordia annually, and (iv) increase in the percentage of total primordium production that developed into needles from 60% to 75–80%.


2013 ◽  
Vol 10 (11) ◽  
pp. 7575-7597 ◽  
Author(s):  
K. A. Luus ◽  
Y. Gel ◽  
J. C. Lin ◽  
R. E. J. Kelly ◽  
C. R. Duguay

Abstract. Arctic field studies have indicated that the air temperature, soil moisture and vegetation at a site influence the quantity of snow accumulated, and that snow accumulation can alter growing-season soil moisture and vegetation. Climate change is predicted to bring about warmer air temperatures, greater snow accumulation and northward movements of the shrub and tree lines. Understanding the responses of northern environments to changes in snow and growing-season land surface characteristics requires: (1) insights into the present-day linkages between snow and growing-season land surface characteristics; and (2) the ability to continue to monitor these associations over time across the vast pan-Arctic. The objective of this study was therefore to examine the pan-Arctic (north of 60° N) linkages between two temporally distinct data products created from AMSR-E satellite passive microwave observations: GlobSnow snow water equivalent (SWE), and NTSG growing-season AMSR-E Land Parameters (air temperature, soil moisture and vegetation transmissivity). Due to the complex and interconnected nature of processes determining snow and growing-season land surface characteristics, these associations were analyzed using the modern nonparametric technique of alternating conditional expectations (ACE), as this approach does not impose a predefined analytic form. Findings indicate that regions with lower vegetation transmissivity (more biomass) at the start and end of the growing season tend to accumulate less snow at the start and end of the snow season, possibly due to interception and sublimation. Warmer air temperatures at the start and end of the growing season were associated with diminished snow accumulation at the start and end of the snow season. High latitude sites with warmer mean annual growing-season temperatures tended to accumulate more snow, probably due to the greater availability of water vapor for snow season precipitation at warmer locations. Regions with drier soils preceding snow onset tended to accumulate greater quantities of snow, likely because drier soils freeze faster and more thoroughly than wetter soils. Understanding and continuing to monitor these linkages at the regional scale using the ACE approach can allow insights to be gained into the complex response of Arctic ecosystems to climate-driven shifts in air temperature, vegetation, soil moisture and snow accumulation.


2015 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 129-135 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alina Danielewska ◽  
Marek Urbaniak ◽  
Janusz Olejnik

Abstract The Scots pine is one of the most important species in European and Asian forests. Due to a widespread occurrence of pine forests, their significance in the energy and mass exchange between the Earth surface and the atmosphere is also important, particularly in the context of climate change and greenhouse gases balance. The aim of this work is to present the relationship between the average annual net ecosystem productivity and growing season length, latitude and air temperature (tay) over Europe. Therefore, CO2 flux measurement data from eight European pine dominated forests were used. The observations suggest that there is a correlation between the intensity of CO2 uptake or emission by a forest stand and the above mentioned parameters. Based on the obtained results, all of the selected pine forest stands were CO2 sinks, except a site in northern Finland. The carbon dioxide uptake increased proportionally with the increase of growing season length (9.212 g C m-2 y-1 per day of growing season, R2 = 0.53, p = 0.0399). This dependency showed stronger correlation and higher statistical significance than both relationships between annual net ecosystem productivity and air temperature (R2 = 0.39, p = 0.096) and annual net ecosystem productivity and latitude (R2 = 0.47, p = 0.058). The CO2 emission surpassed assimilation in winter, early spring and late autumn. Moreover, the appearance of late, cold spring and early winter, reduced annual net ecosystem productivity. Therefore, the growing season length can be considered as one of the main factor affecting the annual carbon budget of pine forests.


2006 ◽  
Vol 55 (1) ◽  
pp. 59-68 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ferenc Ács ◽  
H. Breuer

The climatology of soil respiration in Hungary is presented. Soil respiration is estimated by a Thornthwaite-based biogeochemical model using soil hydrophysical data and climatological fields of precipitation and air temperature. Soil respiration fields are analyzed for different soil textures (sand, sandy loam, loam, clay loam and clay) and time periods (year, growing season and months).  Strong linear relationships were found between soil respiration and the actual evapotranspiration for annual and growing season time periods. In winter months soil respiration is well correlated with air temperature, while in summer months there is a quite variable relationship with water balance components. The strength of linear relationship between soil respiration and climatic variables is much better for coarser than for finer soil texture.


2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jacques D Charlwood

Background: With the possible implications of global warming, the effect of temperature on the dynamics of malaria vectors in Africa has become a subject of increasing interest. Information from the field is, however, relatively sparse. We describe the effect of ambient temperature over a five-year period on the dynamics of An. funestus and An. gambiae s.l., collected from a single village in southern Mozambique where temperatures varied from a night-time minimum of 6oC in the cool season to a daytime maximum of 35oC in the hot season. Results: Mean daily air temperatures varied from 34o C to 20oC and soil temperatures varied from 26 o C to 12 o C. Diurnal variation was greatest in the cooler months of the year and were greater in air temperatures than soil temperatures. During the study 301, 705 female An. funestus were collected in 6043 light-trap collections, 161, 466 in 7397 exit collections and 16, 995 in 1315 resting collections. The equivalent numbers for An. gambiae s.l. are 72, 475 in light-traps, 33, 868 in exit collections and 5, 333 from indoor resting collections. Numbers of mosquito were greatest in the warmer months. Numbers of An. gambiae s.l. went through a one hundredfold change (from a mean of 0.14 mosquitoes a night to 14) whereas numbers of An. funestus merely doubled (from a mean of 20 to 40 a night). The highest environmental correlations and mosquito numbers were between mean air temperature (r2 = 0.52 for An. funestus and 0.77 for An. gambiae s.l.). Numbers of mosquito collected were not related to rainfall with lags of up to four weeks. Numbers of both gravid and unfed An. gambiae complex females in exit collections continued to increase at all temperatures recorded but gravid females of An. funestus decreased at temperatures above 28oC. Overall the numbers of gravid and unfed An. funestus collected in exit collections were not correlated (p = 0.07). For an unknown reason the number of An. gambiae s.l. fell below monitoring thresholds during the study. Conclusions: Mean air temperature was the most important environmental parameter affecting both vectors in this part of Mozambique. Numbers of An. gambiae s.l. increased at all temperatures recorded whilst An. funestus appeared to be adversely affected by temperatures of 28oC and above. These differences may influence the distribution of the vectors as the planet warms.


1971 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 303-314 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. M. Waller

SUMMARYClimatic conditions affecting the development of CBD are assessed by measuring wetness within the tree canopy and air temperature. Saturation of the tree canopy, necessary for spore dispersal, occurs most frequently at the tops of trees and the duration of wetness permitting spore germination is most prolonged at night. Night air temperatures are closest to berry temperatures and are important in assessing infection periods. Disease development in 1968 and 1969 was related to the number of infection periods during the growing season. Polythene tree covers which kept trees sufficiently dry to stop disease development were used in determining infection at different times of the year.


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